Create a Zoom Background with Google Slides

There are any number of Zoom backgrounds available for you to use. The university has some branded backgrounds you can choose from, or you can find countless background options through an internet search. If you have a fairly monochrome environment, such as a painted wall, you can take advantage of virtual backgrounds, even if you don’t have the most powerful computer. 

A recent tip highlighted the use of a virtual background as a teaching tool. When creating your own virtual background you need to be aware of screen size and placement. Although we can create images we may not always know how they will appear in a Zoom environment until we have uploaded them. It helps to know the exact size of the screen so you can plan properly. 

Thankfully, we don’t need to know the exact number of pixels, or even the relative dimensions of the Zoom window. The default Google Slides screen provides an excellent template, because it has the same dimensions as the Zoom video window. We can use the default Google Slides screen to lay out our design, save the slide as an image and import that into Zoom to use as a virtual background. 

Here’s how:

• Open a new Google Slides file.
• Design your slide. Make sure there is empty space on the slide to accommodate  the image of yourself in Zoom.
• Download the current slide as an image.
• Import the image into Zoom.
• Select the image as a virtual background.

Here are some examples.

Design 1

1. Select Theme (here the theme is “Focus”
2. Place an image with lots of “white space” for the instructor’s image
3. Identify the image in a caption.

Design 2

1. Drag a rectangle to cover the whole screen; Fill it with an appropriate color. This creates a monochrome background.
2. Place a text box in an area that will not be covered by the presenter; Enter text to discuss or present.

Design 3

1. Download a background image (here a University branded image) and import it into an empty Google slide
2. Resize the image so it covers the whole Slide.
3. Place content on the slide with room for the presenter.

Once you have designed the slides the way you like, download each slide as an image file (either jpg or png). 

1. Navigate to the slide you want to use.
2. In the File Menu, Select Download > PNG Image (.png current slide) 

An image file will download to your default downloads folder. From there you import it into Zoom and select it as your virtual background.

Here’s what the result looks like in Zoom:

Because the default Google Slide format has the same dimensions as the Zoom video screen you can lay out the design in Google Slides, confident that it will display properly as a Zoom virtual background.